Official Statement Regarding H.O.D Gaming and Game Exploits

Providing a fair, fun, and safe environment for everyone is something we take very seriously here at Wildcard. Building an enforcement team was the first step to making sure that people can enjoy ARK without fear of cheating. Since the introduction of the enforcement team, we've noticed a considerable improvement in the overall quality of life of those playing on our official servers. In severe situations, like someone meshing or duping or spreading information related to such, our first instinct is to try and take action with the intention of preserving the integrity of our official server network.

When someone is banned as a result of our Code of Conduct, there is an appeal process that allows for a fair review of the situation. There are always two sides to every story and we want to remain impartial and hear both. Any issue that violates our Code of Conduct is subject to a fair appeal process. When things land in the gray area, our first instinct is to do whatever is in our power to prevent abuse. Upon further review of the situation involving H.O.D Gaming, we felt that it was not deserving of a permanent ban. Videos showing exploit techniques are admittedly a gray area when it comes to enforcement, which is just one of the reasons why the appeal process exists for bans.

Several changes each patch are aimed at fixing exploits but the methods that are used are continually evolving; as such, we are always trying to improve our procedures when it comes to situations that affect the player-base. We use these situations to take a look at our internal process and identify areas where we can do better or provide more clarification.

There are established methods for escalating exploits to the development team that exist to prevent the spread of information to the general public. The more widely known an exploit is, the more likely it is to be exploited. In these instances you should file your report on the SurviveTheARK website. You can find the link to report abuse or bugs under the support header.

We want to make sure that everyone can enjoy their experience on our official network and will continue to take exploit matters seriously. As always, we value community feedback and encourage you to share it with us. Thanks for your continued support and passion for the game!

User Feedback

Recommended Comments

The people that are going to mesh or want to can just get on YouTube and look it up. It’s not like a policy against discussing it is going to prevent anyone from doing it or learning how.

I still think transparency is the best course. Literally open up a few servers and totally allow it. The problem I see is that people using it as an exploit do it secretly, so it’s harder to catch them. More people probably get in trouble for trying to expose or defend against it than the people abusing it. Why not try letting people do it, and not punish people for taking steps to defend against it?

Share this comment

Link to comment

Share on other sites

You have noticed that the code of conduct is against the free expression of opinion. If you express something that is contrary to an "internal policy" that does not favor players, you are simply banned

Share this comment

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Today thousands of more people will learn the truth about how Wildcard treats their player base.

Wildcard... this backlash has been a long time coming. The entire gaming community is waiting to hear how you plan on fixing Ark. This is your last chance to repair your image, especially if you want repeat customers in the future.

(It's probably a good idea to pull devs off the failing Atlas gaming and have them FINISH the game that pays their salaries.)

As of right now... myself and my many friends who have played your game the last 3 years are boycotting the products your company and your sister company makes. We have many Nitrado servers currently running ark we are repurposing to Rust servers.

We have vowed to never buy another product made by Wildcard, Grapeshot games, Doug Kennedy, Jesse Rapczak, Jeremy Stieglitz or Susan Stieglitz. That could change depending on how Wildcard responds and/or fixes the issues that are plaguing Ark.

Asking Cedric to provide us with a generic statement that is the same crap we have heard for the last 2 years isn't going to cut it anymore. If you want to do REAL damage control then Wildcard CEO, Doug Kenndy, needs to have a CONVERSATION with the community so he can listen to the people that pay his salary and give us a real response instead of the same generic crap we've heard since 2017.

Share this comment

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Never had to wait more then 4 days if I made a ticket. It’s not easy to fix this mesh problems that’s why it’s not fixed. People on YouTube don’t show vids about meshing because they care about the game. They show vids like this because of subs and likes.

Yes wildcard have to fu**ing fix this but it takes time. Since atlas release ark is getting better they are faster in patch something then ever before! They respond to tickets faster then ever the same for wiping mesh bases.

I don’t care if there are a few people out there know to exploit. Because exploits are in ANY game. But I care when BIG youtubers scream out to every kid on this world how to ruin this game!

My last 2 tickets were 22 and 24 days for a response. Yes, originally before the Atlas drop my tickets were around 2-5 days but the vast majority since then have all been several weeks in response. On top of that, if it is not a lost character issue then you get the line of we are too busy to help do anything else so we will not solve your issue.

Share this comment

Link to comment

Share on other sites

The guy should have not been banned because all he did was just reveal to the public that the exploits exist and they needed to be stopped he didn't do that himself in my opinion wildcard kinda misjudged the situation a little bit but hey there they devs we can't do anything about it it's there game

Share this comment

Link to comment

Share on other sites

yall could allow 5 permanent storage spots in the oblisk cause we out here getting wiped by dupers with unlimited amount of supplies c4 and dinos, meshers wiping entire servers with no effort no matter your defenses no one can watch their base 24/7 with a rail gun, cant trust nobody because they will inside you or use the merge to take everything you have then kick you, so why is there no protection like nothing against it after putting months of hard work into this game to have it gone in a night, cant trust alliances cause they will blue tag you, why allow alliances to destroy buildings and kill dinos without turning on them I mean if they break a wall or severely hurt a dino, turrets and dinos should turn on them, everything in pvp is set up to be wiped. I mean yall made it so raiders are more common than traders.

Share this comment

Link to comment

Share on other sites

(It's probably a good idea to pull devs off the failing Atlas gaming and have them FINISH the game that pays their salaries.)

Nonono! Those devs are very happy and needed where they are! I favor keeping the *entire new dev team that has just gotten in place* and expanding it with new people as needed.

Let's remember, those other devs brought Ark from start to 4 years of age. Kudos to them for all they accomplished, but eventually it's time for a team with new eyes to look at things and move them forward.

Also, this team specifically has 1 person (in rotation) on bug-fixes every single day. It may be only one person at a time, but someone is on it full-time. And also let's remember this new team launched a PTS! That's a huge step forward in dev-player collaboration and I want to see more of it.

Share this comment

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Wildcard becomes way too much hate.. for a game we all love so much we shouldn’t do that. It’s a game not a car or something. Most of us played this game more then any other game and doing hate now lol that’s not fair if you don’t like this game anymore play another one because the money was worth it if you see the hours you played and had fun

Share this comment

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Ark is a long time favorite of mine but as the gamea state is now its unplayable.its broken.first youll have the meshers then the ddosers then the duppers and all this information on how to do this what to download is everywhere.the mesh i can tell you right now a kill floor under every surface is the quick way to stpp the issue.will their be death zones will you get it right raptor NO.but everyone who plays pvp your main draw would rather lose a dino then a dozen breed lines and a base worked on and built up by you and your trusted friend's for a few months to 1 kid with a stack of c4 and climbing picks.(just an example). Dupping was not fixed by the transfer timers it became just a sit and wait factor.instead of doing this over and over it can be done once a day every day and boom double dinos.instead it turns simple process into tedious experiences that can leave you exposed and needlessly taking a lose for no reason making server transfers less viable constricting your own content and making players less likely to venture out(though admittedly cryos help but theres still the 30 min timer that can also lead to people just checking drops/obs till they catch you kill you take your items and then spam chat about how the stole your trash pt because who takes their good crap off server tbh).and then ddosing ik people who have their entire info leaked online for legit raids or because someone didnt like you killed their level 50 pt with your turrets so they 255 your server till your gennys go down or u auto decay make a stack of c4 and finish you off.AND DONT YOU DARE DENIE IT MANY HAVE SENT REPORTS AND EVEN POSTED SCREENSHOTS ON MULTIPLE SITES OF BOTH YOUR RESPONSE AND THEIR ORIGINAL ISSUE.often these are clear cut and obvious issuse that you avoid direct contact with.and honestly its an easy fix.look at fornite people useing simple cheats are getting law suits and while i personally hate the game i think thats insanly smart you could be provided with full undisputed evidence of these transgressions and still nothing happens i want to see ip bans i want to see people who threaten others family and even the ones who crash routers face actual legal and financial repercussions for something that at least in the us is a federal crime.but the worst part is alot of people that want to play legit that want to just play a dinosaur game and occasionally raid are resorted to these same practices and even face bans just trying to defend themselves from the undermesher who reported them.youve let us all down wildcard the player base tells you what we want things we know you could do if you cared about the people who loved the work you made supported you for years are the reason you have food in your family's mouths and a company still afloat and all you do is let us down. I could go on and maybe ill make a post to the forums you so obviously ignore but your game is dead all thats left are boosted servers filled with the same issues and admin abuse ,mods, and those of us console players hoping rust comes out so we can uninstall your game. You know what you need to do.make changes including legal ones announce the changes and legal backlash that will be cauaed by ddosing and the let those that ignore it face the music.Your community is fed up.im fed up.and untill you show us why your game was great and fix the issues others have told you about im done.with your game with your company and with being dissapointed in a game i put far to much time in.

Share this comment

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Is it me or does Cedric's avatar look super smug, like he's looking down on us.

I don't look down on people man. Regardless of all the politics that go into enforcement, let's look at the positives. HOD is unbanned, he brought an important topic to light, and it has become a priority both internally and externally. It's a win-win. I can't get into the details of why he banned and what happened. That's not even my area. Sometimes it's good to look at the positives of a situation.

Share this comment

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Guest BubbaCrawfish

Honestly, this should've been handled better, and the user should've remained banned for simply showing exploits for the entire time.

What's going to happen next time someone with a viewerbase ends up reprimanded? Same thing? Weaponized viewerbase, spamming everything, making out there's been an egregious overstep, and demanding that things be done their way...

Making videos showing exploits and demanding that companies fix them, via public arenas, will become the norm, and if they cannot be fixed in time, then SCREW EVERYONE ELSE I HIGHLIGHTED IT VIA MY VIDEO... Don't worry about all those who they put at risk to further their viewers and watches.

Terrible that this guy is actually unbanned, and terrible that others who have done the same thing remain banned.

Share this comment

Link to comment

Share on other sites

That's not what QA is at all... It's what testers do. There's a big difference between QA and simple testing. QA is testing the actual product before it goes live to make sure it's actually working. Such as when the devs check that version to make sure there's no bugs in it such as that it doesn't work on certain operating systems, or that programs don't conflict.

Normal testing, and reporting, is different to this.

Now, if you knew a Windows exploit, and released it publicly like this without notifying Microsoft, you're not forcing Microsoft to do anything, you're distributing the exploit and showing others how to do it, and in the process leaving millions of people at risk of that exploit.

You report it in the correct manner, not turn around and open it up to the world so JUST IN CASE that they CANNOT fix it, you don't make every person vulnerable by your stupidity.

Seriously, if you're that mindless that you can't think about anyone other than yourself and your urge to have something fixed, then you really have no place in "QA", or testing for that matter.

Follow the recommended ways, or just don't even bother. You distribute the information and you're just making it worse if you do what HOD did.

Okay sure, IF THEY EFFING LISTENED. but this isn't like that, people have been complaining about meshing since practically day one, go and check the various comments and even video commentary. It's more like windows being told by it's testers there was an issue, and in response, doing nothing, or worse, going "stop talking about the problem".

So then the only way to get it fixed is to go public with the info. The problem isn't someone leaking the info, the problem is that the person shouldn't have felt that his only recourse WAS to leak the info.

tl;dr, still hire the guy, not penalize him.

(also don't give me that nonsense about HE'S DOING IT FOR THE MONEY AND VIEWS, we all know that you can't make much money off of youtube views alone these days.)

Share this comment

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Any other gaming company would have banned a player for mass revealing exploits. The Ark CSR's are a heck of a lot nicer than they ought to be.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, the -vocal minority- of the players here on the forums are a heck of a lot more toxic than anywhere else I've seen.

To the younger players out there: you may think that being on the Internet gives you a lot of anonymity, but your reputation will follow you. Also, a Wiseman once said, "Treat people for who you are, not for who they are." Please realize that the devs and CSR are people just like you and me.

Are you the type of person that wants to say negative things to people? People don't like negative people. You're going to find yourself pushing people out of your life with this demeanor. That makes for a very lonely path you travel.

Share this comment

Link to comment

Share on other sites

I just got meshed on EU small tribes aberration 56 on PS4. When will you do something about this gamebreaking stuff? People don't report because it's a freaking hassle. If you added a in game report function, you'd be so overflowed with reports.

Share this comment

Link to comment

Share on other sites

I just got meshed on EU small tribes aberration 56 on PS4. When will you do something about this gamebreaking stuff? People don't report because it's a freaking hassle. If you added a in game report function, you'd be so overflowed with reports.

Believe it or not, I know a server owner that linked the game chat and Discord so that players can ping Admins even when the admins are not online. The server owner's Discord name is Lewimaron, and the server is Jamon Paradigm.

Actually, I would love to recommend him to be part of the WC team. Him and the people that helped him to make the linking code. I mean, that by itself is NOT easy to do, and yet they were able to do it.